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Energean to boost East Med output

Freshly London-listed Energean Oil & Gas is boosting its Greek output and expects first gas from its Israeli fields in the first quarter of 2021, making it one of the biggest independent energy firms operating in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Energean listed last month, raising $460 million to develop two Israeli offshore gas fields, Karish and Tanin, which have potential reserves of up to 2.4 trillion cubic feet of gas and 32.8 million barrels of light oil and condensate.

It also won five more Israeli blocks nearby and plans to publish their contingent resource data in the next few months, CEO Mathios Rigas told Reuters in a phone interview.

Energean awarded the contract to design and install a floating production and storage platform (FPSO) for Karish to TechnipFMC.

It is expected to sail from Singapore to Israel in late 2020 and could be linked to other fields to process more gas for export.

“There is a lot of gas that is sitting next to us [and] the FPSO we are building has an 8-billion-cubic meter capacity and we’ve only contracted 4 bcm [with Israel],” Rigas said, adding Israeli annual demand was set to almost double from 10 bcm.

“Incremental volumes are very profitable for us,” he said.

“We will be working to unlock this tremendous potential for us over the next 12 to 24 months.”

Energean expects to benefit from plans to build pipelines in the Eastern Mediterranean to Southern Europe, Cyprus and Egypt.

Rigas said there were no export restrictions on the new blocks.

In Greece, Energean plans to lift oil output this year to 4,000 to 4,500 barrels per day (bpd) from an average of 2,800 bpd in 2017 and 3,670 bpd in the first quarter this year.

It said on Thursday it had extended an offtake agreement with BP by more than four years to 2025 for its Greek output at an average discount of $7 a barrel to dated Brent oil.